Amazing Selfie Craze

For anyone who is waving a selfie stick, the whole world is just his small phone screen, regardless of who and what is around.

Selfie sticks have started off like a wildfire ever since they were first launched in China sometime late last summer. Go anywhere remotely touristic and you'll see groups of stick-brandishing, laughing, mouth-wide-opening people huddling together for a group shot of nothing much more than their own selves.

Called "the most controversial gift of 2014" by New York Times and, on the contrary, "the greatest invention of 2014" by TIME magazine, this is a point of controversy for people. Some call it the "Narcissus' staff" or the rather poetic "solipsistick". But I just simply think that using it makes one like a pig head.

I spent ten weeks in Brazil last winter. But the time turned out to be purely watching people taking selfie shots which has become a national passion to rival soccer.

There was a guy in Janeiro waiting to go up the Mountain Sugarloaf cable car whose huge selfie kept getting caught in the vinyl ceiling of the waiting area. This made other passengers inside the already-crowded cable car very uneasy.

I'll never forget the woman at a spectacular northeastern beach who never took her eyes away from her extended phone. She carefully waded into the warm ocean water while holding her selfie stick at the perfect angle. She posed, smiled, angled her head and posed again till she found a satisfactory angle and clicked the button. Not once did she put down her stick to actually swim in the water. I took a picture of her finally.

The selfie stick situation is so crazy that Rio's major samba schools banned them during Carnaval. As one samba school director told O Globo, "Harmony is key for the group. If people stop to take pictures, that means they're not singing or moving. That can slow down a part of the parade and interfere with spontaneity."

In New York, some museums have banned selfie stick use because they're distracting and annoying to others and also possibly damaging the arts, writes Sarah Hampson in the Globe and Mail. They have also been banned in football grounds in the United Kingdom.

What drives me crazy is how incredibly narcissistic the selfie stick users are. When someone is stuck to their cell phone camera and selfie stick, they view the entire world as a potential photo op. They are in mad pursuit of that perfect selfie in which they'll look fabulous and garner lots of feel-good likes on social media. They'll do anything to get it.

Hampson asked a selfie stick salesperson if he feels self-conscious while using it. His response: "Only if you care what people think." But that, Hampson points out, is the problem: "There are other people in the world besides you."

The selfie stick fans can not truly see what's going on around them. Recording their own presence at a certain moment is the top priority than making eye contact with people or staring into the distance. The history or beauty or cultural differences before their eyes are definitely ignored.

Sure, a selfie stick means a person can snap away without having to ask passersby to take pictures for them.But why is that a bad thing? I'm one of those rare people who still stop strangers for a picture on occasion, and it can lead to short interesting conversations.



Amazing Selfie Craze by arynews